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Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences
The Iron Law Of Selfishness: Response To A Comment By Alexander Field, Ted Bergstrom
The Iron Law Of Selfishness: Response To A Comment By Alexander Field, Ted Bergstrom
Ted C Bergstrom
Alexander Field was not convinced of a result that I claimed in my JEP 2001 paper that in "haystack models" with non-assortative mating, if the number of descendants of founding group members is determined by an n-player prisoners' dilemma game, then the population will converge to a population of defectors. He thought that the result applied only if the groups were large. I respond with a more detailed discussion and show how the result works even when groups have only two members.
Evolution Of Social Behavior: Individual And Group Selection, Ted Bergstrom
Evolution Of Social Behavior: Individual And Group Selection, Ted Bergstrom
Ted C Bergstrom
How selfish does our evolutionary history suggest that humans will be? We explore models in which groups are formed and dissolved and where reproduction of individuals is determined by their payoffs in a game played within groups. If groups are formed ``randomly'' and reproductive success of group founders is determined by a multi-person prisoners' dilemma game, then selfish behavior will prevail over maximization of group payoffs. However, interesting models exist in which ``group selection'' sustains cooperative behavior. Forces that support cooperative behavior include assortative matching in groups, group longevity, and punishment-based group norms.